


Imperial

by AotA



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6502807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AotA/pseuds/AotA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Science meets bending, but the fight with the Goa'uld is more important than quibbling over spiritual abilities versus technology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jack avoided looking blatantly at the scar as he faced down the stern-faced young man—the stern-faced seventeen year old ruler of a nation, that from what they had learned, had almost conquered this entire world. _Which is why it is so weird that these people_ don't _hate the guy, no matter that he's so young._ _And since when did people get off on having under aged_ children _become decorated war heroes fighting their battles for them?_

Jack pushed down the instinctive bristling at the thought, this "Fire Lord" was not Charlie, nor was the oddly tattooed kid sitting next to him, wearing some sort of monk's outfit, _Shaolin or what?_

When the Fire Lord spoke, it was surprisingly composed, when most seventeen year olds would sound like snotty brats he sounded battle hardened, mature. Those strange golden eyes stared at him with formidable weight in their molten depths, "You come bearing a very strange tale, Colonel Jack O'Neill, but it rings true. The… Stargate," he paused, lingering over the word, but obviously not rejecting the idea out of hand, "has been in the hands of the Fire Sages almost since the time the position came into being, be never had we had travelers pass through it."

Jack tilted his head, "That's really weird, 'cause most of the worlds we've traveled to at least of stories of travelers."

The Fire Lord turned his head towards Tattoo Kid, "Aang?"

Aang shook his head, "I never heard anything about any Stargate, _ever_. I could try retrieving some memories, but… yeah. Sorry Zuko."

Zuko sighed but seemed to wave off the half voiced explanation, "Don't bother meditating your life away to find it, it was just a thought. I will have someone look into it, but it's not all that important."

_Not that important?_ Jack stopped himself from screaming, just in time for the Fire Lord to start speaking to him again.

"You say you call your people the Tau'ri, and you hail from a distant planet from which you explore to defend yourselves against these Goa'uld?"

Jack nodded mutely at the suddenly dragon-fierce stare.

"How large a threat are they?"

_Hoo boy, someone is_ serious _. Wow. I think we might actually get somewhere, this kid is_ intense _._ "It's serious. We've been scrambling since we realized just how large a threat they are. They control huge chunks of the galaxy and can take over people's bodies and do whatever they want. The only good thing is they are a fragmented species with no central structure and tend to have a lot of in-fighting. That and they are egotistical maniacs who are as proud as hell, not to mention stuck in their ways."

The Shaolin monk kid, Aang, laughed, "That sounds like an awful version of what Sozin did to the Fire Nation."

Zuko's face tightened, back stiffening, but didn't contradict the kid, _Odd_. "Fragmented is good, but that just means that we can't cut off the Serpent's head and watch it writhe—"

"Zuko!" Aang looked disgusted at the Fire Lord's words.

Zuko just continued talking as if he hadn't been interrupted, "some other Goa'uld would just take the defeated one's. Am I right?"

"Unfortunately," Jack affirmed.

Zuko sighed and leaned back, "Mai is going to kill me. After everything that happened, now this? The spirits just don't give us a break."

"It's not the spirits this time, Sifu Hotman. Even they don't have the power to reach through the void of space—it's the _Void_." The _duh_ went unspoken.

Zuko scowled, but the sheer unfriendly expression just made Aang grin toothily back. The scowl vanished, turning into a disgruntled expression instead, "I never underestimate my enemies."

"The spirits aren't our enemies, Zuko."

"Perhaps not _yours_ , you being the Avatar, but they still have it out for me. They despise all of Sozin's line."

"What about Uncle then?"

"He's White Lotus. He's exempt by default."

" _Zu-ko!"_ Aang's irritated exasperation, "Get your head out of your ass."

Zuko's only eyebrow rose in surprise, "You have been around Toph for too long, monk. You are picking up her _charming_ mannerisms."

Jack was amused at the byplay, but not so much at being completely forgotten in the face of their bantering. He cleared his throat loudly, "A- _hem_!"

Both of their heads snapped around, startled. The monk turned bright read, but the Fire Lord just narrowed his good eye, apparently irritated for having let him witness any lapse in control. "Yes?"

"Maybe we should get back on topic?" he suggested. He was wondering if it was a good idea to interrupt the two, but Zuko was already nodding, a hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose to ward off a headache, muttering under his breath about things that sounded like, _"Stupid… Spirits…_ Monks _…"_


	2. Chapter 2

Jack knocked loudly on the door frame, smirking when it made both Sam and Daniel jump. "Okay, kids!" he let the smirk widen, "It's time to go!"

"Jack!" Daniel scrambled to his feet, tripping over himself as he approached the cell door. His eyes were wide behind his smudged glasses as he wrapped his hands around the iron bars, "You're okay?"

"Sir?" Sam hovered behind the archeologist's shoulder and even Teal'c had risen to his feet and moved slightly closer even though he was as impassive as ever.

Jack gave the red and gold armor-clad soldier who had been his escort slash babysitter since the Flaming-Fire-Head and Bald-Arrow-Head guys let him go a Look. "Hey, are you going to let them out or not?"

The guy bowed his head in a way that reminded Jack uncomfortably of when Teal'c did the same and turned to the just red armored flunky that had shown up when Jack and his babysitter had turned up at the prison. "By the order of his Imperial Majesty, these prisoners are to be released," after spitting out that pompous sounding announcement, Red and Gold held out a scroll with a snappy motion to Just Red. After that, Just Red bustled off, now completely beneath Red and Gold's notice who had turned back to Jack and the still locked up SG-1, "Your party is invited to retire to the Imperial guest apartments at his Imperial Majesty's pleasure."

Just Red reappeared after a few moments, scroll no longer in hand and with an odd hand motion and a strange flare of light and heat at the lock, the door to the cell swung open. Daniel tumbled out with Sam on his heels. As usual, Teal'c was a lot more sedate, but even he was pretty quick to leave the cell.

Jack eyed each of them, before giving Daniel a friendly punch to the arm. "Sounds good," he replied to Red and Gold. As for his team, he waved off their concerns and said, "I'll tell you what's going on once we get there."

Ignoring their questions, Jack trooped them through the corridors to the outside, ignoring Red and Gold until they stepped out into the sun. "Where to now?" Jack asked, pointedly, keeping an eye on his team as they blinked in the bright sunlight.

"This way," Red and Gold said with that Teal'c-esque head bob before taking off at a good clip.

Jack waved his group to follow and predictably, while Sam drifted back to keep an eye on him, Daniel scurried up to chat with Red and Gold on the inside of thirty seconds.

"Hello, my name is Daniel Jackson, may I ask what yours is?"

"I am Aizu..." Red and Gold gave Daniel an odd look, before seeming to give in to a question that Jack had sensed burning on the tip of his tongue since Red and Gold had been charged with babysitting them. "Are you from Earth Kingdom?" Red and Gold had a genuinely puzzled look on his vaguely asian face as he eyed SG-1.

"Earth Kingdom?" Danny echoed, "We are from Earth, but it's not a kingdom. It's- -"

"We're not from Earth Kingdom," Jack spoke loudly over Daniel, "Why'd you think so?"

Red and Gold's odd yellow eyes narrowed and flicked from Danny to Jack, "Only Earth Kingdom noble families are regularly introduced with a family name."

Daniel blinked and Jack pursed his lips in a silent whistle. _Damn. Not good._

"Oh!" Daniel hurried to explain, "No. We are not nobles. We're from-"

"Danny," Jack said.

Daniel gave him an irritated Look, "What?"

"I told you I'd explain what's going on once we get settled in," Jack said sourly. Red and Gold's head lifted higher, as if he had not been asking questions, not reacting to Jack's not quite reprimand of his team mate. Jack had the feeling, used to these sorts of things by now, that Red and Gold wasn't supposed to be asking questions in the first place. _Naughty, naughty, that Red and Gold._

All of a sudden, Red and Gold stopped and spoke stiltedly, "We have arrived, sirs. His Imperial Majesty entreats you to rest and recover from your trials that he might speak with you in due time."

"Thanks," Jack drawled, sketching an irreverent salute that made Red and Gold's eye twitch before sauntering inside the overly red and black and gold so called "apartment" that Red and Gold had stopped outside. When his team didn't immediately follow, he popped his head out the door and gave them the stink eye, "Well? Come on kids!"

Sam rolled her eyes and gave a small sigh, "Coming, sir."

Daniel gave Aizu an apologetic look, "Thank you for showing us the way."

"It was my honor," Aizu said stiffly, eye twitching again when Jack called Daniel's name _again_.

Daniel smiled and headed into the apartment, smile vanishing as he gave Jack a look that was as annoyed as the smile he had given Aizu pleasant. "Jack," he said grouchily, "What the hell? We should at least be polite to the person who let us out of that prison."

"Yes, yes, you can play nice with the natives later," Jack rolled his eyes, "but you can trust me when I say that guy's not important around here. He's a flunky with fancy gold on his clothing because the kid in charge of this place makes him run errands. And babysit."

"Kid?" Sam asked.

Teal'c's presence suddenly loomed over them, "There is a child ruling this nation?"

Jack grimaced, "Yeah. I'd say he was nineteen to early twenties at the oldest. And he's a war hero."

Sam bit here lip as the corners of her eyes creased in worry. "How long ago was the war?"

"It's been a couple years," Jack shrugged, forcibly nonchalant though he knew that the pinched look in his eyes revealed how he really felt about that. _Children. War heroes._ In the best of times he thought that the two ideas should never be put in the same sentence unless as _child of_ a war hero, but at the moment, all that it made him think of was Charlie and the gun. Especially the little Shaolin kid who was _the last of his entire people_.

Sam bit off a curse.

"They called it the Hundred Year War," Jack said grimly, "and a bunch of kids are decorated war heroes because they _ended it_."

"Did it last a hundred years?" Daniel asked with a frown, "Sometimes it doesn't last as long as the name implies... Though sometimes they're longer..."

"Whooo boy," Jack huffed, "From the top... Yes, it did last an entire hundred years. Apparently, the Fire Nation, our lovely hosts, committed a genocidal attack on a group of people they're calling the Air Nomads and killed them all, except for one, who I'll get back to later. So, after killing all the nomads, the Fire Nation moved on to kill or conquer everyone else, including the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes.

"Aizu asked if we were from the Earth Kingdom!" Daniel said, "So all the groups of people are named after the classical elements? Remarkable!"

"Danny..." Jack said, trying to catch his brainy team mate from getting lost in thought. He should have known that it was a useless endeavor. It didn't help that Daniel was entirely missing the point. Which was that the Fire Nation had tried to, cliche as it might sound, _take over the world_.

"I would have thought that they would ascribe to the five elements of eastern philosophy..." Daniel muttered thoughtfully to himself as Jack rolled his eyes.

"Snap out of it Jackson!" Jack snapped, "It doesn't matter if they call themselves _Fireflies_. They're working on rebuilding after their Hitler- esque hundred year long _clusterfuck_ of a war. And now they have to deal with the Goa'uld." He paused, raising a finger in the air, "Am I the only one who thinks that this is _not a good thing_?"

Daniel flinched and Teal'c's frown became more pronounced, "They do not yet appear to be technologically advanced enough to protect themselves from an attack by the Goa'uld."

"Oh!" Jack snapped his fingers, as if he had just remembered something, "That reminds me. I'm not sure what it is they're doing but some of 'em have got some pretty interesting magic powers."

This had Sam raising an eyebrow, "Magic, sir?"

Jack gave her a silly, razor edged smile and raised his hands to flutter them, "Magic. Powers."

The odd look Sam slanted his way was more than eloquent enough to convey her skepticism.

Jack shrugged, "You saw the flunky who let you out of the cell do his Firestarter impersonation, and it looks like we've got enough of these guys wandering around that can do the same that the kids were stumped I'd never heard of their nifty abilities."


	3. Chapter 3

"So, yeah," Jack said as he finished explaining what the situation was as best he understood it, shoving his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching. "Normally I'd be voting we skedaddle our butts right back through the 'gate, but on this one... I gotta say that I'd really prefer we not let the snakes get their slimy paws on walking, talking, _intelligent_ , self-aiming flamethrowers." And that was without mentioning the covert possibilities. Dress one of those guys up in something other than the red he'd seen all over the place and they'd never know they were anything other than a normal human until they blew up in their faces.

At least with the snake's technology, if not _all_ of the weird crap that they'd run across on their missions, you could tell you were dealing with a weapon.

The flinch moved through SG-1 like a shockwave.

_Yeah. Thought so._

"They are more advanced than the Goa'uld would ever allow one of their slave planets to become," Teal'c noted.

Jack raised an eyebrow. A lot of times, the important part of what the big guy said wasn't what he actually _said_. Putting that together with "not advanced enough to fight the Goa'uld" added up to... They aren't strong enough _now_ , but that doesn't mean they _won't_ be. _If_ they get the chance. Hmmm...

Daniel propped his glasses up, "I saw some a few airships of some sort on the way here, so they have a type of flight. They have to have foundries if they are going to be building so many large scale projects using metals. Steam engines of some sort, at the least. Glass, obviously. And if I'm right, then that's probably going to be piped in running water." He pointed at what looked vaguely like a faucet with a basin that looked vaguely like a sink, if you squinted. "They are a _lot_ more advanced than most of the people we come across," he said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, they're amazingly civilized, if you ignore the whole genocidal bit," Jack snarked.

Sam closed her eyes as if in pain, "Let's not borrow trouble, sir." She turned to Daniel, "I noticed it too. The bars of our cell were made out of what appeared to be high quality steel. The lock was as well, with a complex design, obviously taking advantage of their pyrokinetics technology. Mines to supply coal and natural gases would fit."

"'Pyrokinetics technology?'" Jack scoffed, "I didn't see any tech when they were waving their hands around."

"Easily early twentieth century," Daniel nodded, talking over Jack, "At least for some things. The pyrokinesis though..." The anthropologist's face turned thoughtful, "I have to wonder if it is actually technology..."

This time it was Sam's turn to sigh, barely refraining from rolling her eyes at the predictable "soft-science" ideas Daniel inevitably proposed, preferring to cut him off before he got started this time, "And how many times have we run into an _actual_ metaphysical explanation?"

He stared at her stubbornly.

She stared right back.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Teal'c spoke up, interrupting their typical spat, "Do they stand united?"

Jack just shrugged, "Kind of hard to tell when you only talk to the head honcho just once." And the head honcho is a _kid_.

"Then we should speak with them again," the former first prime said firmly.

Jack glanced from one member of his team to the next and since they seemed to have a consensus that they should stay and talk, Jack nodded, "Okay. Game plan."

* * *

"A stargate," Zuko said after the man had left and Aang had left him alone, tasting the word, "A gateway through the void." A gate to other worlds, beyond the high rim of the sky where there was no air, no _life_ , farther than any sky bison or dragon could fly.

There was a threat out there. One he could not just reach out and _kill_ to protect his people.

It wasn't like his father, who had been far away in power but not unreachable. Unlike his father, it was not human. Not animal. Not spirit.

It was alien.

And he wanted it _gone_.

His fingers clenched and his mind returned to the older soldier that reminded him, with his sharp eyes and wit and protectiveness, of Lieutenant Jee. A maverick, but a maverick far too good at what he did to toss aside entirely.

Zuko wondered what Jack O'Neill's military was like if he was leading a team important enough to be a seen as the best, or if he was on such far flung missions as to get him out of the way. Out of sight. Out of mind.

O'Neill wanted to kill the enemies of his people, the Goa'uld. O'Neill did _not_ want Zuko's people, or the Water Tribes or the Earth Kingdom to fall under these creatures' enslavement.

O'Neill, who knew nothing of bending.

O'Neill who had weapons that were different from anything the Fire Nation had armed her soldiers with.

"Science..." the Fire Lord murmured to himself thoughtfully, "They might not have the power of any of the elements but they have the power of the mind. And time." The mind was a powerful thing, and if it was the only form of "bending" that they had, then they would have pushed it to the greatest of heights, as each nation had their own benders.

And the power of thought was the most dangerous weapon of all.

Ally with these people?

If the tales they came bearing were true, tales that Zuko's gut said _were_ the truth, no matter how horrible, then they would have no choice _but_ to throw their lot in with these foreign humans who were not of Fire, Earth, Water, or Air.

* * *

Aang zoomed through the corridors of the palace, dodging the stuffy, I'm-looking-down-my-nose-at-you people as he went, ignoring the shouts of flash-fire rage as the wind accidentally caused a couple wardrobe malfunctions along the way. "Sorry! Sorry!" he shouted as he passed by, but he needed to get _out_ of there. The palace just felt suffocating recently and only recently did he get a name for it.

Well, _Toph_ gave him a name for it anyway. He didn't really like The Word, because he was a _monk_ , and Toph had laughed herself hoarse when he had told her so.

He still didn't understand what was so funny, why Katara had gotten such a weird look on her face when he had complained, or why Zuko had such trouble keeping a straight face when normally he had gotten so good at the impassive face of impassive ness that Aang had felt obligated to warn him that his face might get stuck that way. Just because he didn't like using _that_ word.

Wanderlust felt like a dirty word, even if everyone said that it really wasn't.

Aang did have to admit that--after he had kind of, sort of managed to stop blushing after that conversation--the description of the word felt right. He needed to travel and wander where the wind would take him. Even this extended stay felt like a cage, even if it was a cage with the door left unlocked.

The sun was bright as he burst out of the palace and into the open air, glider blowing open as he jumped down the steps and skimmed the ground while the disturbed flock of butterfly sparrows flitting away in a dazzling rainbow of wings before hurtling himself skyward with a sharp gust of wind and a whoop of joy until he was a mere speck in the sky to anyone looking up at him from the ground.


End file.
